I have received quite a number of e-mails from guys asking about the DCF process. Since I have not actually been through it, I can only recount what I have read, heard, and answers to questions I've raised. Today, I came across a recent account on another board of a couple that filed DCF with the US Embassy in Kyiv. Since the story matches everything I have understood about the process, and since it was very well written, I decided to re-post it here. Enjoy . . .
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Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2002 06:39:31 +0800
From: David Neeley
Subject: Ukraine marriage and the I-130
INTRODUCTION
I have recently returned from Ukraine, where my wife and I married
on February 8 in the ZAGS office in Severodonetsk, Lugansk Oblast. None of the sources I have found offer a checklist of all the facets of this process including the details that make this a much simpler alternative than it otherwise has to be.
DISCLAIMER
Please notice this is only applicable to Ukraine/American marriages. Other former Soviet and Soviet Block countries are probably similar, but you should look at them carefully to determine where differences exist.
I should also say in advance that any of this is subject to change without notice. I am by no means an "expert" although the process is obviously fresh in my mind. Thus, don't complain to me because, as always, "Your mileage may vary!"
SPOUSE VISA VS. FIANCEE VISA
By far the most common method is to file an I-129 Fiancee visa application. You file this, wait the seemingly endless time until the
application is approved, your fiancée goes to Warsaw for the visa interview, then flies to the States where you have 90 days to marry or for her to return home if things just didn't work out. For the reasons below, I did not find this a particularly attractive option in our case.
If you are confident in your relationship with your fiancée, there
are a number of reasons you might consider marriage in Ukraine. For one, your lady is contemplating two fundamental changes-marriage to you and adopting a much different culture than she knows now. In our case, we believe that even a short period of living together in Ukraine can help to reassure you both that the marriage will be a smooth transition. Then, your wife can concentrate on the cultural changes without so much apprehension. I spent a month in Ukraine, and I consider it time well spent.
In addition there are several other factors we thought were worth
considering. First, we married with her mother and many friends and
colleagues present. It is not original with me, but it does seem the wedding is primarily for the bride. For her, marriage with her friends and family present seemed a much more worthwhile path than marriage with no one from her background there as it would have been with American marriage.
Second, when your wife interviews in Warsaw and is granted a visa
followed by her entry into the U.S., she has her conditional permanent residence stamped into her passport. Thus, there is no "Adjustment of Status" interview and she can leave and then enter the country when she wishes. So long as she doesn't go overseas for a year or longer, she doesn't jeopardize her status and she does not need an "Advance Parole" with the attendant hassle. Later, if she decides to apply for citizenship she can do so much earlier than if you go the I-129 route. The qualification time begins with her first entry into the U.S. on the I-130 visa rather than with the AOS interview as with the fiancée. This can be a year or more quicker to citizenship.
BEFORE YOU GO
Document legalization
If you have been married previously, you will have to go through
some additional hoops for marriage in Ukraine. If you were divorced or if your prior marriage was annulled, you will need to obtain an official copy of the court decree. Then, you must have your State certify it at the proper office of your State's Secretary of State. After that, you send it to Washington to the appropriate office of the U.S. Secretary of State.
Notice that this is "certification" and NOT an "apostile" process.
The two look identical except that one says "certified" and the other
"apostiled". FYI, this is because Ukraine is not a signatory to the
appropriate treaty that specifies the "apostile" process. Russia is, but Ukraine is not. Thus, you must determine that you have or are applying for the right one.
If your prior marriage was ended by the death of your spouse, you
will have to have a copy of the death certificate certified in the same way.
After the U.S. Secretary of State certification is received, you
then submit it to the Ukraine Embassy for their certification (which
consists of a couple of rubber stamps). Note that the office of the
Secretary of State will forward it to the Embassy if you include proper instructions and a postage prepaid envelope.
The Ukraine Embassy requires that you not use a credit card for
payment of the shipping to you. Why your credit card number on a Fedex envelope for payment upsets them, but it does. In our case, I received the envelope with a form showing the credit card payment for shipping is not acceptable-and the certified document. Go figure!
Visa
In our case, I submitted the visa application which I downloaded and printed from the Ukraine Embassy Website. I was not sure which visa category to use, so in the space that asked for purpose of the trip I put "tourism and marriage." In the block about where I'd stay, I said I did not know where I would stay in Kyiv, but I would stay at my fiancee's address in Severodonetsk. The visa was issued as a "Private" visa. Note that there are no visa registration requirements in Ukraine any more. Of course, they got it back too late for my initial ticket and it cost me a good deal to change the registration to the following week. You would be well advised to do all this enough in advance that you don't run into this particular problem.
IN KYIV
At the airport
When you fly into the Kyiv/Borispyl International Airport, you
probably already know there are two lines for Customs, the Red line for those who have something to declare (as listed on a large sign overhead) and the Blue line for those who have nothing to declare.
In my case, I thought perhaps I should go through the Red line
because I had a few questions about properly executing the customs
declaration form. When I was asked why I was in Ukraine, when I answered "To be married to a lovely Ukrainian" I was ushered to the Blue line and told to use that line when I left, too. They didn't bother looking at the declaration either time.
The consulate
Your first step is to obtain a "Letter of Non-Impediment to
Marriage" at the Consular section of the U.S. Embassy. Note that this is in a different location than the Embassy. The Consular office is at Number 6 Pymonenko St. They offer this service between 9:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. daily except the last Friday of the month. In our case, I flew into Kyiv on Sunday and went to the Consular Section early the next morning.
First a clerk and then an officer of the State Department will
examine your documents concerning any prior marriages. You will swear you have not remarried and are legally eligible to marry. You will sign the "Non-Impediment" letter and the official will sign and seal it.
The foreign ministry
Next, you will go to the office of the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine. If you have completed your visit to the Consulate early enough, you can go straight to the Foreign Ministry. They accept these documents for certification in the morning only, and return the certified documents at 4:00 p.m. Note that when you get to the Foreign Ministry, there is a large façade with two double door entrances. The one on the left has signs on either side of the doors, one in Ukrainian and one in English, that you have indeed found the Foreign Ministry. The other set of double doors has no signs-but, as you have probably guessed, this is the proper entrance for your business.
All government fees in Ukraine are paid to any branch of the
National Bank of Ukraine, the "Oschadna" Bank. What no source I have found tells you is that there is a series of bank cubicles on the other side of the large room in which you will file your Letter. One of them (second from the far left) is the Oschadna Bank branch where you can pay the fee. You will pay the fee and take the receipt and the Letter of Non-Impediment across the room and give it to the clerk.
You will now have a few hours to kill prior to picking up the
properly stamped receipt. When you entered the Foreign Ministry, you saw directly across the street an elaborate sky-blue church with gold domes. This is the Mihailovsky Cathedral, the principal cathedral of the Ukraine Orthodox Church. It is quite interesting. If, like me, you cannot spend that much time looking at a church, if you continue down the street on the other side of the Cathedral for five or six long blocks you will come a large square. The far side of that square is the famous Kreschatik Boulevard.
When you return to the Foreign Ministry, you may find on a table at the far side from the entrance a blank sheet of paper on which people put their names as they arrive. This proved to be the order in which the waiting crowd later lined up to get their documents. This was handy, as there were about fifty or sixty people waiting when we were there.
THE MARRIAGE
Preliminaries
For your marriage, you will have to have the properly certified
documents regarding any former marriages and your passport's information page translated into Ukrainian. Although the Kyiv Embassy Website lists several translators in Kyiv, you will probably get better service and much more reasonable fees in your fiancee's home town. Until the rules are changed (perhaps later this year), you will have to be married in her home town, anyway. The pending rule change would allow marriage in any city in the country, but that has not taken effect yet. You will also have to have the Non-Impediment Letter translated unless you fill in all the information in Ukrainian (names, addresses, etc.). The rest of that document already has Ukrainian information, so it is relatively simple for your lady to help you so you won't have to have that one translated.
ZAGS
Before the wedding
If your fiancée was prudent, she has already handled the notification requirements for her local ZAGS office. Officially, there is supposed to be a 28-day notice. Generally, an additional fee can be paid (okay, a bribe!) to shorten that period to whatever time you have. In our case, a colleague of Irina's filled out some kind of medical certificate and the notice period was waived. I suspect it was a note that she may have been pregnant-but she didn't say and I didn't ask. She did say this was a large source of amusement from her gynecologist colleague.
Your lady will schedule the wedding. For some reason, in our case
Irina had to go the 90 km. to Lugansk, the Oblast capital, and have some kind of certification of my documents from the ZAGS office there.
The wedding itself is much like weddings in America, except that it takes place at the registry office. We had about thirty people at our wedding. The wedding rings were exchanged, and we went back home for receiving the guests and other friends and colleagues who could not make the wedding itself.
The reception
If we had a larger budget, we could have had a reception at a local restaurant for $200 including all the food, booze, and entertainment. Since I am not regularly employed yet after my layoff last Spring, we opted to host the people in Ira's flat. We had about fifteen bottles of "champanska", several of wine and several more of vodka, piles of various foods and a large four-tier wedding cake...and the whole thing ran to just about $100. Certainly a bargain. The cake was lovely and actually tasted quite good...and set us back some $14 (70 gryvnia). I mention the costs so you might have an idea of what to budget for your own wedding.
Back to ZAGS
For some reason I have not determined, Irina had to return to Lugansk to get yet another stamp on our wedding certificate. This meant that I held down the fort at home while she went over and back. Since she was having to return to work on Monday, we did it all on the Friday of the wedding. If you're fortunate enough to marry a lady who lives in an Oblast capital, obviously it'll make the running around less frantic.
Ira was somewhat upset when she realized we had not "legalized" our wedding certificate in Kyiv-until I told her this wasn't important to the American authorities.
Preparing to file the I-130
Translations
Just as your documents had to be translated to Ukrainian for your
wedding, so must her documents need to be translated into English for the I-130. It will be easiest and cheapest to have your lady's home-town translators do the work while you are there. Documents needed will be for any prior marriages (divorce, annulment, or death certificates), her birth certificate, your marriage certificate, etc. You should get the I-130 with instructions and G-325a with instructions. They will detail the documents you will need.
All documents can be submitted via xerographic copy of both sides of the documents and the English translation stapled behind the copies. The Kyiv Consular officers still want the originals of each document paperclipped to the front of the copies/translations. These are examined and then returned to you when you file.
There is another form you sign which states that all copies are
exact copies of unchanged original documents.
Other details
When you marry, you may want to have your new wife get a new
external passport in her new married name. This can be a good indication to the examiners at the visa interview in Warsaw that you are making a legitimate marriage and not trying to merely get her a visa. Note that it is estimated to take at least sixty days, but for an additional fee it can be expedited (as can most things in Ukraine!).
Alternatives for the I-130 filing
There are three alternatives for the I-130 filings: back in America, in Kyiv, or in Warsaw. I will cover each briefly. Notice that there are several details you may not find elsewhere for whatever reason.
Note that the filing fees for the I-130 went up $20 each as of the
third week of February. Thus, the fee is now $130 each. Also note that if your lady has one or more minor children, each of them must have a separate I-130 although they do not have to have a G-325a included.
Back home
If you do not actually live in the country in which you marry, and
if you marry a Russian citizen in Russia, this will be your only option. However, since this document is for Ukraine marriage, I will merely say that filing in the U.S. at your friendly neighborhood INS district office is a nightmare of delay. Presently, the Texas Service Center is about 18 months behind on these applications. If you do file in the U.S., you should make yourself familiar with the K3/K4 visas to get your family into the U.S. a little quicker. This is ridiculous, of course, since the actual processing time of a K3 application is about the same as for an I-130-but then, this is the INS after all.
In short, if you marry in Ukraine and file in the U.S. you have
rocks in your head IMNSHO.
Kyiv
Filing in Kyiv means they accept your I-130 packet formally, then it is sent to Warsaw. The process in Kyiv first has a clerk look through the packet to be sure it is complete and in the order listed on the Website instructions. Then, a consular officer is called to review everything and ask a few relevant questions of you and your lady. In our case, she asked Irina how we met, how long we had known each other, and one or two small items to be cordial. Since we do not have much of a language between us, she asked how we communicate. Both the officer and the clerk seemed quite amused when we told them that for more elaborate communications we use computer translation.
After the formal acceptance of the packet, we were asked if we would like to pay for DHL air shipment of the packet to Warsaw. This, too, I have never seen referred to elsewhere. They explained it would take off a great deal of time if we were in a hurry for the visa. Before this, I had considered filing the packet directly in Warsaw. Since they apparently wanted both of us to be there at the filing, this would have been very difficult in Warsaw. I did not inquire, however, whether they would accept the filing if my wife had not been there.
Although all the instructions for the I-130 say the fee must be paid with a check or other instrument payable at a United States financial institution, if you file at a Consulate the fee must be in cash.
Warsaw
If you file in Warsaw, the present processing time appears to be
four to six weeks. Since I did not file there, I can only be sure of the details such as paying in cash.
I hope this may be of help to some of you. If I had it to do all
over again, I would still marry in Ukraine.
David
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